Demonstratives and DP Structure in Formosan Languages

This paper studies the noun phrase structure of Paiwan demonstratives by examining in detail the typology of demonstratives, possessives and numerals in Formosan languages. Four main issues are addressed: in Formosan languages (A) whether the word order variation in nominals may be best accounted for along the lines of the antisymmetry condition in Kayne (1994); (B) whether demonstratives, possessives and numerals all need to be categorized as (denominal) verbs; (C) whether all types of nominal modification involve relative clauses; and (D) whether demonstratives are always definite in reference. The answer to these four questions seems to be all negative in view of the Paiwan observations that (A) the form and distribution of these three types of elements may not agree with one another; (B) the predicative elements may be nominal in nature; (C) attributive modification and predicative modification may be syntactically distinguished among modifiers; and (D) the referential properties of demonstratives may be grammatically marked.